Cycling and Nitrates, they dissapeared!

[Madayew]

I cycled my tank in 3 weeks. I was at 0, 0, and 10 ppm of nitrates. I added some ph buffer and salt and today my water is 0,0,0. I used 1 goldfish in a 90 gallon tank to get it ready for cichlids. I added my cichlids today. I'm just worried about not having any nitrates though. Any ideas on how my nitrates are 0? I added some benefecial bacteria liquid the other day as well.

Is it possible the bacteria did not have enough waste to eat and died off? or can there be too much beneficial bacteria and the colony dies?

any ideas?

Thanks

 

[Toby_H]

　
　
　
　
It is possible that when the "bacteria in a bottle" product was added, it introduced nitrate oxidizing bacteria to the tank which converted your nitrate to carbon dioxide which gassed off. This bacteria will not sustain itself in your tank long term, but may have been active for a while upon introduction.
　
I do not have much personal experience with these "bacteria in a bottle" products though, so I am simply theorizing on this one. They do claim to contain nitrate oxidizing bacteria, though I have no clue if such a claim is valid nor if the anaerobic bacteria will ever oxidize nitrates in oxygenated water.
　
　
Another related point, cycling a tank with a single Goldfish will only establish enough bacteria to process the amount of waste produced by a single Goldfish. Therefore when you added your Cichlids you greatly increased the amount of ammonia being produced. It will take some time for the existing bacteria to reproduce enough times to handle this larger ‘bio load’.
　
So be prepared to do a lot of water changes for the next week or two…
　
Also, cycling in 3 weeks is pretty darn fast. There is a chance that the little bit of ammonia produced by the single Goldfish was diluted enough by the large volume of water to not yet be detectable. If you go through the typical process of an ammonia spike, followed ammonia dropping accompanied by a nitrite spike, followed by a drop in nitrite accompanied by a nitrate spike…

 

[hybridtheoryd16]

Alot of people have trouble getting consistent results from nitrate test kits.

I have several times before forgot to shake Bottle #2 in the API kit. And get a result of zero nitrate.

I would retest and compare results.

 

[bob965]

Alot of people have trouble getting consistent results from nitrate test kits.

I have several times before forgot to shake Bottle #2 in the API kit. And get a result of zero nitrate.

I would retest and compare results.

This. I had the same problem when I was cycling my first tank and using the API kit. Even now, I can test when I know I should have significant nitrate, and I sometimes still come up with a yellowish color that corresponds to a zero-ish five-ish nitrate reading. I'm still not sure what I'm doing wrong, as I follow the procedure to a T.

 

[KaiserSousay]

Even now, I can test when I know I should have significant nitrate, and I sometimes still come up with a yellowish color that corresponds to a zero-ish five-ish nitrate reading. I'm still not sure what I'm doing wrong, as I follow the procedure to a T.
Do your fish look stressed?
Are they behaving in any unusual way?
They still eating?
Guess what I am getting at is using the testing as a guide and not to fret over it too much.

 

[Madayew]

thanks for the help

 

[brianp]

I cycled my tank in 3 weeks. I was at 0, 0, and 10 ppm of nitrates. I added some ph buffer and salt and today my water is 0,0,0. I used 1 goldfish in a 90 gallon tank to get it ready for cichlids. I added my cichlids today. I'm just worried about not having any nitrates though. Any ideas on how my nitrates are 0? I added some benefecial bacteria liquid the other day as well.

Is it possible the bacteria did not have enough waste to eat and died off? or can there be too much beneficial bacteria and the colony dies?

any ideas?

Thanks

I seriously doubt that the nitates are gone. I don't know why you are not getting a reading, unless you are confusing nitrates with "nitrites". Under certain anaerobic conditions (which you usually have to work hard at to establish), nitrate can be converted to N2 (nitrogen) gas...which will bubble off. Sadly, nitrate (NO3) does not contain carbon and hence, can not be converted to CO2 and bubble off. Keep taking those readings and perform routine wcs to keep the nitrate level in check. BTW...a single goldfish in a 90 gallon strikes me as next-to-useless to cycle the tank. Rather, you should add a reasonable number of fish, wait 24 hrs. to build up a little ammonia and then add something lke Seachem Stability. Stability (and related products) contain two species of bacteria...one to oxidize ammonia (NH3) to nitirite (NO2) and a second to oxidize nitrite to nitrate....that's the end of the nitrogen cycle in your tank.

 

[Madayew]

your right the 1 goldfish was a huge mistake, i didnt know, I have 13 cichlids in there now, and after 2 days just did a 20% water change as my ammonia was at 1 ppm

 

[Madayew]

will amquel ruin a young cycle? it removes nitrates as well. would this remove my small amount of nitrates and stunt a cycle? im just looking for an easy way to reduce ammonia levels

Thanks

 

[Toby_H]

Amequel nor Prime nor similar produces "remove" ammonia/nitrite/nitrate... they "detoxify" it...

The labels use different terms at different times, but the topic is thoroughly covered in the Seachem Customer Service Forum by the Customer Service Reps themselves...

Also note that they are only "detoxified" for 24~48 hours...

While I understand you asked about Amequel, not Prime, they use the same basic approach to do the same basic thing...